About this item
"If you think you know what a library is, this marvellously idiosyncratic book will make you think again. After visiting hundreds of libraries around the world and in the realm of the imagination, bibliophile and rare-book collector Stuart Kells has compiled an enchanting compendium of well-told tales and musings both on the physical and metaphysical dimensions of these multistoried places." -- The Sydney Morning Herald Libraries are much more than mere collections of volumes. The best are magical, fabled places whose fame has become part of the cultural wealth they are designed to preserve. Some still exist today; some are lost, like those of Herculaneum and Alexandria; some have been sold or dispersed; and some never existed, such as those libraries imagined by J.R.R. Tolkien, Umberto Eco, and Jorge Luis Borges, among others. Ancient libraries, grand baroque libraries, scientific libraries, memorial libraries, personal libraries, clandestine libraries: Stuart Kells tells the stories of their creators, their prizes, their secrets, and their fate. To research this book, Kells traveled around the world with his young family like modern-day "Library Tourists." Kells discovered that all the world's libraries are connected in beautiful and complex ways, that in the history of libraries, fascinating patterns are created and repeated over centuries. More important, he learned that stories about libraries are stories about people, containing every possible human drama. The Library is a fascinating and engaging exploration of libraries as places of beauty and wonder. It's a celebration of books as objects, a celebration of the anthropology and physicality of books and bookish space, and an account of the human side of these hallowed spaces by a leading and passionate bibliophile.
About the Author
Stuart Kells is an award-winning writer whose books have been published around the world including in the US, China, Britain, Japan, South Korea, Italy, Romania and in his native Australia. His book 'The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders' was shortlisted for the Australian Prime Minister's Literary Award (non-fiction) and the New South Wales Premier's General History Prize, and longlisted for the Waverley Library Award. (See his Paris Review article, 'The Strange Magic of Libraries', and his Guardian article, 'Blood, Bookworms, Bosoms and Bottoms: The Secret Life of Libraries'.) He has won the Ashurst Business Literature Prize twice (in 2016 and 2019) . His shorter writings have appeared in a wide range of journals, magazines and newspapers, including the Smithsonian Magazine, Daily Beast, LitHub, the London Times and National Geographic Traveler.His latest book is 'Shakespeare's Library: Unlocking the Greatest Mystery in Literature'. Publisher's Weekly called it 'a fascinating examination of a persistent literary mystery', and Anna Rogers wrote in 'Noted': 'Kells's style is easy yet erudite, and often very funny...He admits cheerfully to his own obsessions, but remains blessedly sensible, articulate and unafraid of a spot of iconoclasm...In his view, Shakespeare's probable working method was one of "gradualism and collectivism". He used whatever material was available to pen topical, popular plays that were ideal for performance. But, before they were printed, they needed refining - editing - by others, both in his lifetime and after his death. Such a view may rattle the reverent, but there is thought and conviction behind Kells' suggestions.'
